1930-12-17 — Page 13

CHINA

MAIL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT, 1930,

13

...

WELL MATCHED!

Sparkling Christmas Story of A "Flighty' Girl Who Met Her Match.

ISS Dorothy Hislop presents her com- begs to inform him that she was eighteen

last Tuesday."

Donald Lincoln spread the piece of notepaper out in front of him with a wry mile. He was sitting in his chambers in the Temple. A youngish man, handsome, and well built, with a clean-cut, thoughtful| face of the burrister. After a moment he placed the note which was causing him to smile on top of another, which held exactly the same handwriting:-

By FRANCES.SEYMOUR.

beauty, blue of eye → a girl, a woman, a

hand. "So my guardian has come to life "Hullo!" Dolly held out a firm, brown

at last. He might have come down himself, Mr. Chambers, but I suppose that an ambas- sador is better than no one. Miss Mostyn is Laking an examination and sent me along. Do sit down!"

Donald sat on the edge of a chair.and stared at the loveliness of her. She was a woman, indeed, in the first sweet blush of her young womanhood, and he had thought of her playing with dolls. And she was smil-

"My dear Guardian," he read. "Break it to me gently. Miss Mostyn, our respecting at his awkwardness. ed headmistress, suggested to me to-day that, as you seem to take little interest in tae," you intend to leave me at this admirable vcademy for young gentlewomen, as a mistress. Heaven, and my good guardian, forbid, I pray you. I have nothing against schoolmistresses; some of them are sweeted. souls, though, generally speaking, they have dreadful taste in footwear.

""Cheer up!" she said. "I know how you are feeling. Any young man would. A bit cool of my guardian to send someone about my own age down to see me, I must say."

Donald gulped.

"But the position is growing difficult. The term ends in a few weeks, and I can't again return to school as a scholar. In other words, dearest sir, it is time you awakened to responsibility of having a ward. What is to become of me? By the way, thank you very much for the fiver you sent me when I reminded you that I was now eighteen. I did not do it with that inten- tion. I only wished to call your attention to the inevitable passage of time."

Donald sighed, and after a moment fold- cd the letters up and placed them in a drawer at the side of his desk. Something would have to be done.

A year ago, when old Silas Hislop had died and had appointed him guardian to his granddaughter, it had seemed a strange business, but the old chap had given him, his chance in life, and he had accepted the guardianship willingly enough. The girl had been at school in the country at the time, in Sussex, and as Silas had died in the South of France. she had not come home for the funeral. Since then, thanks to measles, a trip to America on Donald's part, and a holi- day in Yorkshire with friends, guardian and ward had not met.

"Your own age, young lady," he laugh- "I like that. I am thirty!" She nodded.

"A nice age for a man. A girl of twenty, and I'm getting on, is about the Hame as a man of thirty. Well, what's the ultimatum?"

Donald reddened.

"Mr. Lincoln had your letter!" he said. "That's a mercy. I had almost come to think of the man as a fairy tale. Really, the way he has treated me"

"It's been a chapter of accidents,” said Donald quickly. "No one regrets it more than Mr. Lincoln."

"And now he sends you to interview me, Mr. Chambers," she laughed. "Really, he is a strange man. But I don't mind. You look kind. Tell me, why didn't my guardian come to-day?"

"A very important case in the courts, Miss Hislop, at the last moment," he ex- plained, and then hastened on. "Now, the fact of the matter is, your guardian realises that you have come to-to an age when you are fit to judge for yourself, and he would like to know what you would like to do in the future."

tion.

Dolly clasped her knees with satisfac

Really." she exclaimed, "he's a very sporting old fellow, and I like him as much as one can possibly like anyone through the post. I say. Mr. Chambers" her voice dropped into the confidential note of a school girl-"do you think he would feel awfully hurt if I spent the next holidays with a girl here, Yvonne Marot, whose people live in Faris? Miss Mostyn says it is quite all right, and I do adore Christmas in Paris!"

1

"My dear man," she said, "they are some of the old French nobility. Terribly suppose"--she eyed him with momentary strict, and very jolly. Thanks awfully!

doubt "I suppose you can speak for my guardian ?"

"Oh, yes," said he, and then in case he had spoken little too quickly, he added: "By the way, though, I've been sent down to-day to sound you, Miss Hislop. Mr. Lincoln, er-er-feels himself in a bit of a difficulty. He doesn't want you to feel that you've got to do anything in the future you don't want to do. Have you made up your mind what you would like to do with your life, where you'll live, and what you'll do?"

The girl's blue eyes clouded a little. “Shan't I live with him?" she asked, Donald looked worried.

"Well, you sec, that the point. · He's a bachelor"

"But frightfully old, isn't he? I really know nothing about the man. Like my darl- ing old grandfather, isn't he, Mr. Chambers ?”

Donald blinked.

"Well, no, he's not so old as all that, Miss Hislop, and his bachelor ways would scarcely suit you. That's the point."

Dolly laughed kindly.

"I see," she said. "It's rather sweet of him to be so worried. I've got about two hundred a year of my own, haven't 17"

"Yes, It's not much, but”? |

"It'll do me." She rose, and held out a friendly hand. "I hear Miss Mostyn coming. She'll think us much to much of an age, Mr. Chambers, for a private converse, so thank you. Tell my guardian_that I think he has been most generous, and most sporting. I'm dying to see him. As for the future. I'll think it out all over the Christmas holidays, and when I come back to London, then I'll have worked something out. I shan't bother him.

"Ah,"

she said demurely, "Miss Mostyn'!"

རྒྱུུ་*

·

Christmas came and went in its inevit- able manner.

It had not been an easy time for Donald Lincoln, for he was dreading January. The mere he thought the whole matter over, the more he regretted now that he had not taken To Donald she had seemed just a little

the plunge when he had gone down to the girl. He pietured her with dolls, and pig-

school in the Autumn. It would have made tails, if such things existed in this bobbed and

things easier now. What was he to do? If shingled age. But eighteen! He suppose

only he had a sister or some decent temale that through a London season he danced

relation. But he had no one. And he felt often enough with a lass of eighteen, had

rather diffident about handing the trust over now and again flirted, yes, probably proposed

to some lady friend. In a few weeks the girl to a girl of eighteen! Devastating thought!

would come back from Paris. He could "I'll really have to see her," he mutter-i Donald breathed freely. Once again imagine her arriving at Victoria in the furs ed. "I'll go down on Saturday, Dash it all, was he saved. Of course, it was putting off he had sent her from her "guardian" as a 1 believe I'm funking it!"

the evil day, but it was better than no- Yuletide gift. She would look exquisito. Funking it so much was Donald that when thing, and it solved the business of the She'd be back in England, and glad to get he arrived at the lovely old Queen Anne Christmas holidays. He had been dreading back as one is after a journey abroad. She house, which was Miss Mostyn's Select them. What could he do with a girl of would feel that sense of homecoming which, Academy for Young Gentlewomen in the eighteen on his hands over Christmas? The too, is only to be felt about that time of heart of Sussex, he was guilty of a subter-question was impossible.

the year. She would look for home. inge.

His flat? Oh, heaven! He shivered at He sent in his name to Miss Mostyn as) can - that is to say," he assumed a semi- the prospect of informing Howard, his im Mr. Chambers. Was he not Donald Char- judleíol air, "that is to say if Miss Mostyn maculate and elderly manservant, that he bers Lincoln? He stood trembling, as he is quite certain that they are entirely suit had a Miss Dolly Hislop, his ward, coming nilght have done if the Lord Chief Justice able people." i:ad sent for him in his private room during a trial. Then suddenly someone entered.

A golden, laughing, whirlwind of

"Why," he exclaimed, "of course you

She laughed, and his eyes feasted them to stay. In fact, it could not be done.

What then? selves upon the delicious picture of her throat as it was thrown back in that laugh:

(Continued on Page 15.)